


The Siblings Adaar

by sister_dear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Qunari
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:11:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_dear/pseuds/sister_dear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herah and her brother Kaaras stumbled out of the Fade only to land, unconscious, nearly on top of each other.</p><p>Or, Dragon Age if there were two Inquisitors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I recently started yet another Dragon Age Inquisition playthrough with a second Qunari Inquisitor and it reminded me just how much I love playing a Qunari. It got me thinking about them again, about the politics, the lifestyle, just in general. Which, naturally, made me want to write about one of them. I couldn’t decide which one, so, well, what happens if you have two Inquisitors? And the Qunari siblings were born.
> 
> This is currently more a collection of short scenes than an actual story, written down as they come to me. Don’t go expecting anything like chronological order. Potential spoilers for the entire game and likely the Josephine romance, characters and pairings to be added to the tags as they become relevant.

Pain woke her. Pain, and a green light that flashed cruelly in newly awakened eyes. Herah winced, turning her face away. 

The door slammed open. 

Threats. Nothing new for a mercenary. But everyone dead? Kaaras, at least, had been with her. She knew he’d been with her.

“What about—” She cut herself off mid rebuttal. It was not wise to give names to people who threatened death, and likewise would not do to refer to Kaaras as her brother. They looked little alike; strangers often didn’t realize they were siblings. Best to keep it that way. 

“Your companion is alive, and in much the same state you are.” A new woman, just now entering the room, Orlais thick in her voice. She looked at the other woman and shook her head, a clear signal. Herah hoped it meant Kaaras was awake and aware enough to be keeping his wits about him. He tended to assume that threats of death meant murder was a real and present danger that required a similarly violent response, not one of many possible outcomes in any given confrontation. 

“Where is he?”

“Ah, but if you would have an answer, first you must give one to us.”

“Explain this,” bit out the first woman, her hand harsh on Herah’s wrist.

That strange mark. It ached. “I— I can’t.”

More questions, more threats. It didn’t matter; Herah knew this game, had been a participant many times and in many different roles. Angry the women might be, but someone who truly wanted answers would not be ready to kill. Not yet, not unless Herah dug her heels in like the the mule-headed Qunari they expected her to be. The first woman - Cassandra, she’d been called - turned away soon enough in favor of addressing one of the soldiers stationed around the room. “Fetch the other one. 

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take them to the rift.” 

Standing took far more effort than it should. But then there was sunlight in her face, a hole in the very sky, and Kaaras being accompanied out of a door just to her left by a pair of soldiers who bowed shortly to the woman before retreating. 

Green light flickered from Kaaras’ hand; his left where hers was on the right. His eyes scanned her in return, deemed her healthy enough. Darted to their surroundings, calculating the odds. With both of them here they could likely escape, even bound and unarmed. They could go over the wall, use the dense brush as cover, burn away their bonds with her magic.

An explosion from the sky. Pain. Fierce, searing pain. They staggered against each other, holding one another up. _It is killing you._ Herah met her brother’s eyes, saw the way they darted to the armed and angry soldiers all around them, the way his shoulders twitched with the desire to move. But they couldn’t fight their way through this problem, not if what Cassandra said was true. Herah, for one, did not think the woman was lying when she said she needed them alive. So she tilted her head, knocking her horns against those of her brother. _We’re together; we can handle this._ “We understand. Take us to this rift.”


	2. Meet the Iron Bull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fast forwarding a bit to the Storm Coast, though I'll probably go back and expand on the beginning later. Thank you to everyone who left kudos or a comment!

Herah learned of the Qun while dogging the heels of Tal-Vashoth mercenaries. Warnings and bitter recollections thrown in with practical advice on how to maintain her equipment and not wind up frozen if she ever found herself stranded in the Anderfels. But she also learned of the Qun in raunchy stories told over warm campfires, in brazen laughter and “have I ever told you about the time…” She might have to hide what she was from the rest of the world, but here she was merely another outcast among outcasts. This was her family, as much as her parents and her brother. They had her back. 

Kaaras learned of the Qun from his parent’s silences, from topics avoided. When it became clear that he would join Herah’s mercenary company himself the moment he was able, his parents sat him down and drilled him on terms. This name is safe enough to trade with. If you encounter this name, make sure they do not see your sister. If you hear this name, run. Run and don’t look back.

(Kaaras, even when young, was no fool. He knew that Herah’s increasing number of “learning journeys” were mere euphemism for going on jobs and beating things up with the mercenary company her magic-teacher worked among. Their mother taught him the sword and their father took him with whenever he traveled to sell his wares, all an effort to curb his boyish jealousy. It was a jealousy that did not fade until he grew older and their parents’ many lessons and warnings began to truly sink in, at which point the jealousy transformed into a fierce protectiveness.) 

(Herah tolerated it because all the members of the Valo-Kas who lasted more than a season or two were protective of each other. In her mind, a little protectiveness was what you looked for in any true friend.)

And so, when Herah approached the leader of the Chargers with a Qunlat greeting she’d heard from childhood easy on her tongue, Kaaras hung slightly back, hovering at her shoulder. 

And when the Iron Bull pulled them just that bit further away from the rest of the company, the words Ben-Hassrath crossing his lips, Kaaras jerked back with terror singing in his veins. His hands lifted of their own accord towards his weapon and his sister. His sister, who was in grave danger, whose only response was a curious tilt of the head. “Ben-Hassrath. Yes, isn’t that—”

“I know what you are,” Kaaras interrupted her, pushing himself bodily to the front. He ignored her hiss of irritation, eyes only for the threat standing so brazenly before him. “You expect us to trust you?”

The Iron Bull met his glare levelly. “Trust me to do the job you’d be paying me for? Yeah. I do. If you want to talk about the Tal-Vashoth thing, we can do that, but not here. And if you want to talk about that-” his horns tilted towards the staff strapped to Herah’s back “-then I’d just like to point out that we’ve got one or two of those with the Chargers. You know, just in case you hadn’t noticed, them being so subtle and all.”

Herah’s hand on his shoulder stopped him when he would have challenged the spy further. He met her eyes, could see clear as day what she wanted to do, but her silence told him she would leave the final decision to him this time. That, ultimately, was what decided him, as she no doubt knew it would. “Fine,” he growled, rolling shoulders still tight with adrenaline. Herah obligingly dropped her hand. “But there will be conditions.”

The Iron Bull crossed his arms over his great barrel chest and nodded. “Lay it on me, boss.” There was nothing mocking about his eyes or his tone. The unease curled tight in Kaaras’ chest loosened by the slightest fraction. 

There was one underlying message repeated over and over in his parent’s lessons: watch out for Herah. Herah the mage. Herah who tried to talk when she should fight. Herah who let things slide when she should be angry. Herah who sometimes saw good things in people when he didn’t. Opportunities instead of obstacles. And when she was wrong? Well. He was very good at making people regret their poor choices. A Ben-Hassrath spy would be no different.


	3. Something New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set soon after the arrival at Skyhold.

Kaaras had himself sequestered in Skyhold’s newly renovated workshop, pouring over weapon schematics and mourning his lost greataxe, unwillingly abandoned along with the rest of Haven.

He knew it was ridiculous to become tied to such things but… it was made specifically for him, out of materials he chose, the haft shaped for his hand. He’d never had a weapon quite like it. He had a tendency to lavish on it to a degree that often had Herah rolling her eyes and Sera casting lewd jokes in his direction.

At some point he heard Herah come in, haggling over the price of their latest finds with Harritt, but it wasn’t until she approached that he drew himself away from the designs enough to look at her. A new staff stuck up over her shoulder, its top ornate in that way that managed to be entirely ugly, the bright glitter of the metal and highly polished haft eye-catchingly deadly for someone whose protection on the battlefield all too often relied on fading to the background while someone else did the attention grabbing (at least as much as anyone throwing around bolts of lightning _could_ ). In short, it didn’t suit her at all. 

She caught the direction of his attention and shook her head at him. “Stop scowling, Kaaras. It’s only temporary. This is the best one we had that’s not already being used by someone else.”

“It’s hideous.”

“And _temporary_. You’ll need to pick something too, until Harritt finishes a new one for you.”

He grunted. “Bull’s old hammer made it here. It’s in better shape than anything in the armory; he didn't have it that long before we found the one he’s using now.”

That answer seemed to satisfy her. Her posture relaxed minutely, shoulders easing out of the ridgedly correct posture she held them to when she was stubbornly set on defending her own point of view. She came to stand beside him, bumping his shoulder affectionately with hers. “Are you going to go with something similar to the last one?”

“Similar, yes, but dragon claws don’t just drop out of the sky; this one will have to be metal.”

“Don’t say things like that. With the way our luck has run lately, I’d rather not place any bets.”

He snorted. “I'm thinking obsidian…”


	4. A Small Vanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set just before Halamshiral.

The accompanying companions were chosen. The clothing was tailored, the jewelry selected. The etiquette lessons had gone as far as they were able in the time they had. There was just one last thing Herah wanted to do before they left for Halamshiral. She spent some time rounding up and preparing the necessary supplies and then put on her oldest, most heavily stained clothing. Then, armed with a gift of the freshly made Ferelden cookies that he so liked, she tracked down her brother. 

Josephine found them in their shared quarters twenty minutes later. Herah was seated upon an old stool with her horns, face and neck protected by strips of scrap leather and a moth-eaten cloth spread across the floor. Kaaras stood behind her, gloved hands working a thick paste into her hair. 

“Inquisitors, I- oh. I am sorry, I did not mean to interrupt.”

“It’s all right, Josephine. You know you’re welcome any time.”

Josephine came around to stand where they could both see her without Herah having to turn her head. She watched the movement of Kaaras’ fingers - methodical, slow, well accustomed to this task for all that he liked to complain about it - for a long moment, strangely silent. 

“Josephine?”

Their ambassador shook herself, as if coming out of a daze. “Ah. I must apologize again. I simply, well. I had wondered how siblings might come to have such vastly different coloring. I… must admit that dye was not the scenario I thought most likely.” 

Herah nearly shrugged, stopped herself just in time. Kaaras grumbled at her anyway. Choosing to ignore the heavily implied inquiry about their parentage, a conversation best left to another time, she answered the other question instead. “Most of the members of our company go brown or black. Shokrakar’s idea; all that silver was attracting too much attention on night jobs.”

Josephine’s eyes drifted up to Kaaras’ silver tail. “And yet you do not color yours.”

He blinked slowly, mind focused on the task of separating out a new portion of hair. “No. It’s my job to attract attention.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course, how silly of me.”

“I wanted it fresh. For the ball.” Herah felt a blush blossoming on her cheeks at admitting to this slight vanity.

“I am the last to criticize caring for one’s appearance! Especially at such an important event as this.” Josephine cast her eyes over the two of them, more carefully this time. “Do you require any other supplies? I find I must admit to a distressing lack of knowledge when it comes to your hygienic needs.” She bit her lip, as if not knowing the most intimate hygienic habits of everyone around her was a personal failing. Herah’s eyes tracked the movement with singular intensity, and she straightened from a languid sprawl to intent alertness, the shift in posture nudging her head up into Kaaras’ hands. He growled at her outright this time. She reached back and blindly patted at his leg in apology. 

“Stop. Moving. I _will_ smear this stuff all over your horns.”

“Sorry, Kaaras.” She didn’t sound sorry at all.

“We’ve got it covered,” Kaaras informed Josephine. “Shokrakar’s been sending us little gifts ever since we got her that job with the demons. Anything she can’t get for us, Bull can.”

“So there are some things the Inquisition has not been providing? A conversation that can wait for another time; I have disrupted you for long enough. I shall leave you to your work.”

“No, you needed something, didn’t you?” Herah spoke quickly. “What was it?”

“Merely to go over the most recent information we have on the guest list.”

“We’re not going anywhere. Stay.”

“Very well.” Josephine cleared her throat, unfolding the long parchment she’d brought up with her. “Duchess de Montfort has finally confirmed that she will be attending. If you encounter her, remember to…”

...

Some time later, after Josephine had gone and all Herah had to occupy her mind was to stare absently into the fireplace, a thought occurred to her.

"Kaaras?"

"Yes?"

"I am never telling Josephine what goes into the horn oil."

"Agreed."


End file.
